Tag Archives: Music

Day 1
Rain. Rain and wind as bad as in the UK. Persistent, consistent, insistent rain. From before we landed at Cape Town International we new the weather was going to be bad, we only saw the runway moments before we touched down onto it and the cloud we were descending through was thick and dense.

From previous experience it is always worth prebooking a hire car at Cape Town airport, this time we’d reserved a Fiat 500, a great little car for the city. Getting into this tiny little car we immediately felt guilty, this guilt escalating every time we accelerated, went up a hill, round a bend, basically did anything, oh the joys of a decent power to weight, power steering, and responsive control. I’m sure I’ll continue with this letter of love affair with a small little new model in a later post.

That evening we were invited to see Johnny Clegg. I’d never heard of him. Everyone we mentioned this to showed joy and wonder that a) he was performing and b) that we were going to see him. He’s been playing for 32 years now and has a sound like no others. He seamlessly merges western instruments melodies with sounds, rhythms and keys from Zulu and other African tribal music. As a anthropologist by training he has a keen eye and ear for the ways and feelings of the Zulu people, in fact he is sometimes known as the White Zulu. His concert at the Baxter Theatre was one of six he’s doing there, and from them he’s going to release a live and unplugged album in December.